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I. What is Financial Literacy? Course Objectives. Welcome to your financial literacy course based on The 21st Century Student’s Guide to Financial Literacy – Getting Personal. If you have already taken the financial literacy course based on The 21st Century Student’s Guide to Financial Literacy – Going Global, you will see that, in this course we are going small. We are moving from a global, world-wide exploration of money, commerce, innovation, and entrepreneurship, to exploring how money works on a personal, individual level. Relevance. When learning a new subject, students often ask “ Why do I need to know this? How does this information relate to anything in my life?” They wonder how the information is relevant to them. You’ll never ask such questions in this course. Money and your ability to manage your money impacts your life every day and will become even more important as you get older. Financial literacy is defined as the ability to understand how money works, how money is earned and managed, and wealth built. Comprehensive financial literacy includes knowing how money works on a global or macro level and how it works on a personal everyday or micro level. This course addresses personal financial management. Together, these courses Going Global and Getting Personal , enable you to develop comprehensive financial literacy . Course Themes: Earn-Build-Protect At this stage of your life, you probably believe that you will experience some level of financial success in your lifetime. You probably assume that you will, at least, live comfortably with a nice home, a career, a car, enough food, decent clothes, and a few of life’s finer things like travel or tickets to awesome concerts. The fact is, most Americans face serious financial challenges. America is a financially illiterate country. Few people have even basic personal finance and money management skills. Moreover, financial illiteracy is an equal opportunity offender. It impacts men and women, young and old, of any race and and across socio-economic lines. Course Themes. This course is built around three financial literacy themes which are key to your personal financial success: Earning an income, building wealth, and protecting the wealth you build: Earning an Income. Unit One explores issues and topics related to earning an income , including income, employment, employee benefits, taxes and withholding, and salary. We’ll examine how education impacts earnings potential. We’ll compare banks and other financial institutions where you deposit your earnings. We’ll do some career exploration and, because your generation is quite globally-mobile, we will examine some of the the challenges of earning an income by pursuing a career overseas. Building Wealth. Unit Two is devoted to the theme of wealth-building . Your ticket to prosperity is not just a good job and salary. That’s only the start. What you do with the income you earn, how you manage your money, and the tools you utilize to convert your income into wealth are key. We’ll also explore the notion of debt, and how some types of debt can be a tool for building wealth. We’ll look at how wealth is built through savings, retirement plans, homeownership, and investments. Protecting Wealth. Unit Three is all about preserving and protecting wealth . In other words, we’ll focus on avoiding the things that can cause you to lose the wealth you’ve built. We’ll learn about the wealth-preserving benefits of a budget, explore how to manage credit card debt, and review different types PRODUCT PREVIEW
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THE 21st CENTURY STUDENT’S GUIDE TO FINANCIAL LITERACY
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